Altagracia Salazar, the long-time muckraking journalist, expressed her concern the bill that is under discussion in the Chamber of Deputies is predominantly the one presented by senator Felix Bautista (FP-San Juan de la Maguana), Jose del Castillo (PLD-Barahona) and Aris Ivan Lorenzo (PLD-Elias Piña). The original Felix Bautista bill calls for the forfeitures to be for future seizures and that the bill not be retroactive.
The Senate-Chamber of Deputies committee studying the bill is presided by lawyer Pedro Catrain (PRM-Samana).
Chamber of Deputies president Alfredo Pacheco (PRM-National District) has said the bill would soon be passed. He said the three bills submitted on the matter have been merged. Salazar expressed her concern that the bill could be drafted in “useless” style such as were the Political Parties Law and Electoral Regime Law. These were so ambiguous that they could not be applied. At the time, Puerto Plata senator Jose Ignacio Paliza defended the bills saying they were not perfect but were the “possible bills,” referring to the political agreements that were reached to pass the bills.
Pacheco highlighted a workshop with international experts was held. He said that after the bi-chamber committee finishes its review, the bill will be presented in public hearings. The bill is mandated by Art. 51 of the Dominican Constitution that calls for a law with a regime for the administration and disposition of assets seized and abandoned in criminal proceedings and in the trials of extinction of domain, provided for in the legal system.
The bill would provide an important tool to prosecutors to combat coruption and drug trafficking. Nevertheless, there is doubt about what will be passed, especially given that lead author of the bill, Felix Bautista is better known by most as a champion of corruption. Felix Bautista was able to clear a major case of corruption against him for graft when he served as the director of the Office of Supervision Engineers of Public Works (OISOE) until 2010 during the Leonel Fernandez administrations.
While the Dominican Republic’s Public Prosecutor’s investigation under Dominguez Brito had extensive evidence – including tax declarations, bank statements and more – against Bautista and his associates, the case was dismissed in March 2015 due to “lack of sufficient evidence.” The judge on the Supreme Court who dismissed it was a member of the same political party as Bautista. An appeal in October was then dismissed. Then attorney general Francisco Dominguez Brito refused to continue the case and filed it away, benefiting Bautista in 2015.
Bautista would instead be of subject of international actions to penalize corruption in office by Transparency International and the US government.
Transparency International included senator Feliz Bautista in its list of the most corrupt government officials in the world. Transparency International revealed that Bautista had allegedly enriched himself with state funds.
In 2018, the US Justice Department is publicly designated Dominican Republic Senator Felix Ramon Bautista Rosario under Section 7031(c) of the FY 2018 Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, due to his involvement in significant corruption. Section 7031(c) provides that, in cases where the Secretary of State has credible information that foreign officials have been involved in significant corruption or gross violations of human rights, those individuals and their immediate family members are ineligible for entry into the United States.
In addition to the designation of Senator Bautista, the Department also publicly designated and penalized his spouse, Sarah Haydee Rojas Pena, and children Felix Ramon Bautista Abreu, Felix Jose Bautista Abreu, Felix Augusto Bautista Abreu, Felix Miguel Bautista Soler, Felix Fidel Bautista Grullon, and Yanilssa Bautista Bencosme.
Read more:
Altagracia Salazar sin Maquillaje
El Dia
Hoy
DR1 News
US State Department
US Embassy DR
Transparency International
OCCRP
Diario Libre
22 September 2021